136

No way they actually said it out loud (thelemmy.club)

submitted 2 months ago by vovchik_ilich@hexbear.net to c/slop@hexbear.net

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[-] came_apart_at_Kmart@hexbear.net 81 points 2 months ago

they pay my mortage (principal, interest, taxes, and insurance) and grow my equity in the house (net worth) while i do nothing, but im not a leech steadily growing heavier from sucking their blood.

i can accept that some people are simply too dense to not understand the distinction between increasing wealth (building equity) and monthly positive cash flow (putting cash in my account), but holy shit... this is literally the most obvious example.

[-] Nopeace@hexbear.net 77 points 2 months ago

Ok... Then sell it to them? Was that so hard to conceive?

[-] underisk@lemmy.ml 41 points 2 months ago

No you don’t understand! The private equity companies made the best offer so you have to sell it to them, it’s the law!!!

[-] goferking0@lemmy.sdf.org 25 points 2 months ago

It's not even that its

if I sold it to them or another family what if they just immediately sell it for more to the investors? They'd all the money instead of me!

[-] SacredExcrement@hexbear.net 76 points 2 months ago

"Landlords are leeches"

"Yes, I'm a landlord, BUT"

This feels like bait, it's not even in separate comments

[-] purpleworm@hexbear.net 31 points 2 months ago

I think they are saying some landlords (the big companies, not "mom and pop" landlords) are the problem

[-] VILenin@hexbear.net 21 points 2 months ago

Then they should be happy when they meet the staff from the mom-and-pop-run reeducation camps

[-] SacredExcrement@hexbear.net 20 points 2 months ago

I'm sure that probably is it, but they still aren't making the critical connection there; which is that they ultimately are still landlords using the money of others to prop up their own investment.

As liberals are wont to do, you can launder the sentiment, dress it differently, and call it by a different name, but it doesn't change the nature of the thing.

[-] ClimateStalin@hexbear.net 55 points 2 months ago

I’ve seen this take so many times, and the most generous explanation I can give them is that they’re very stupid people who don’t understand the concept of equity

[-] ClimateStalin@hexbear.net 25 points 2 months ago

I do actually think there’s an ethical amount to charge as a landlord, but that amount is significantly less than a mortgage.

Most ethical landlord example: You own a house that you plan to live in later but for some reason can’t currently. You want to rent it out, as un-lived in homes fall apart quickly. You rent it out for a couple hundred dollars a month, enough to cover upkeep and maybe taxes. If you have a mortgage on it, you pay that yourself with your money from working an actual job.

[-] FunkyStuff@hexbear.net 12 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

IMO the fair amount doesn't cover taxes. Property taxes in the US are mostly a measure to cool down the rate at which landowners accumulate wealth from land value rising. Since the renter isn't getting equity in your scenario, if the renter is paying the property taxes then the landlord is profiting from the system where every other landlord hoards housing to increase its price.

Another way to look at it is that if the property tax didn't exist at all in this scenario, the landlord would still be accumulating wealth without working at the expense of the people who have to buy the house later, i.e. they're exploiting them (or, more likely, the future tenants who will pay off the future landlord's mortgage). Even with the property tax existing the house is going to gain more value than what the owner loses to property tax, but that's somewhat outweighed by inflation.

[-] ClimateStalin@hexbear.net 10 points 2 months ago

I think that’s a totally fair point

Main reason I said maybe is I hadn’t thought it through thoroughly and didn’t want to take a stance lol

[-] came_apart_at_Kmart@hexbear.net 46 points 2 months ago

i overheard a convo between a couple of genX homeowners the other week.

they were lamenting how high property taxes were and their strategy for dealing with it was selling and renting.

i didn't say anything, because i thought i was having a stroke.

[-] SuperZutsuki@hexbear.net 36 points 2 months ago

People who haven't rented anything since the 80s still think you can rent a house for $500 a month. You should have encouraged them

[-] Johnny_Arson@hexbear.net 24 points 2 months ago

$500 don't even get you the shittiest one room studio in CA bay area lmao

[-] came_apart_at_Kmart@hexbear.net 19 points 2 months ago

$500 might get you an efficiency sublet in Jerkwater, Indiana. or like an illegal SRO unit with no heat and an active gas leak in NYC.

[-] himeneko@hexbear.net 17 points 2 months ago

with roommates*

[-] deforestgump@hexbear.net 38 points 2 months ago

This pretty much sums up the whole relationship between the US and Ukraine.

[-] FuckyWucky@hexbear.net 36 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Ok, so will they get the home if they stay there for 15-30 years? They pay off your mortgage while you gain a real asset at the end.

[-] ZeroHora@lemmy.ml 35 points 2 months ago

Oh god one of those post that refill my hatred for the western world.

I'm only exploiting refugees, they are not human people, I'm so generous.

[-] ScoffingLizard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 2 months ago

I heard Trump made an EO to prevent a lot of corpo residential purchases. I'm sure it has a hidden caveat that it only applies in red states or some perverse nonsense.

If he actually pulls it off it will be the second thing I've ever seen him do that was useful. I'm sure the other thing inadvertently hurt someone he hated.

[-] Commiechameleon@hexbear.net 33 points 2 months ago

Could just do a rent to own type deal. Otherwise if you want to participate within capitalism and accrue passive income to fund a communist underground, become a landlord with maoist characteristics, basically charge 33% of income. Might only work if you have a whole complex, buuut you'd be more ethical than 90% of current landlords, so long as you actually do maintenance and prevention, WITHOUT having to be prompted. Imo anyway. Not anywhere close to doing any of this.

[-] Johnny_Arson@hexbear.net 21 points 2 months ago

We been working for a decade trying to push that here where I live. They just keep demolishing slums that we're at least affordable and building apartment complexes with x% "affordable" units that are no bigger than the flats they replace and cost 3-4x what they replace even though the lot not has like 1000% more sq footage because single story old motels are being replaced with these god awfully ugly 5 story buildings. Density is cool and all but it just feels like a subsidized realty scam.

Anyway cool-zone

[-] Sanctus@anarchist.nexus 28 points 2 months ago

Bbbrrruuuuuhhhhh

[-] towhee@hexbear.net 18 points 2 months ago

settler

[-] PKMKII@hexbear.net 11 points 2 months ago

So the Ukranian family rents until they’ve paid off his mortgage. Then what? Is he just going to rent forever? At some point he’s either going to have to sell it, in which case we’re right back where we started, or it gets passed to an heir, in which case it’s going to someone that didn’t pay the mortgage while the Ukrainian family gets nadda.

[-] FunkyStuff@hexbear.net 8 points 2 months ago

If he sells it while the Ukrainian family was renting it he will have exploited them. He gets the whole value of the sale for free.

[+] bigfish@lemmy.dbzer0.com -10 points 2 months ago

Imo they're actually right. Landlords who charge above costs are leeches. But if the rent is costs (mortgage and HOA in this case), then it's as fair a deal as possible. Owner gets the property and its risks (damage, depreciation, default) in exchange for their initial capital outlay. Renter gets a place to stay in exchange for (what I'd assume to be) a relatively stable reasonable rent.

[-] vovchik_ilich@hexbear.net 62 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I'll be polite because I know most hexbears here won't be (please comrades don't dunk much on this person, I mean it).

As fair deal as possible would be rent at production + maintenance costs, anything above this goes in the form of assets to the homeowner, which implies a wealth extraction from literal war refugees to a local with a house. There are no risks of depreciation in social housing for example because there's no "market value", only production + maintenance, which are fairly constant, and default + damage should be socialized costs as much as falling to the ground and breaking your arm on the street, even if you're drunk, should be paid for by society.

[-] bigfish@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 2 months ago

Appreciate the restraint and fully agree with you on what should be. My struggle is just to thread the needle between what should be and what's possible with the systems we have in place.

[-] Le_Wokisme@hexbear.net 9 points 2 months ago

instead of rent you sell non-voting shares in a company that owns the property and anyone who was ever a "renter" is entitled to a dividend if you ever sell proportional to their contribution to the mortgage and maintenance, or a discount if you sell to them.

[-] FunkyStuff@hexbear.net 5 points 2 months ago

Is there a resource where I can learn about how to do something like this with my inheritance?

[-] Le_Wokisme@hexbear.net 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

uhhhh contact your state's bar association i guess? i don't remember what specialty of lawyer you need for it. I haven't seen a template around, just general ideas for ways to entitle renters to a fair-ish share of the equity that's built.

an S-corp would be sufficient but there might be more purposeful arrangements. maybe steal some bylaw phrasing from co-ops.

[-] bigfish@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 2 months ago

That's genius. Works in our capitalist hellscape and gives people ownership to a degree even while renting.

[-] PKMKII@hexbear.net 3 points 2 months ago

Almost a rental-coop hybrid model

[-] vovchik_ilich@hexbear.net 7 points 2 months ago

Well, yes, the question is also about what's possible with the systems in place. When examining the housing and rent market all over the western capitalist world, a plurality of political ideologices, parties and ethnicities has led to essentially the same problems taking place everywhere. If all politicians of all signs can't formulate meaningful response, and no liberal democracy can solve the issue of housing, maybe the problem is more systemic than it is about policy.

In contrast, China has 95+% of home ownership rate, Cuban university students get free housing, and the Soviet Union had universal housing at an average rent of 3% of the monthly income.

My point is that it's not that we need to innovate in policy and formulate new ideas, what we need is systemic change and immense pressure on the owning class, both of which can only be achieved through worker organizing in unions and in socialist/communist parties.

[-] AntiOutsideAktion@hexbear.net 56 points 2 months ago

DON'T YOU FUCKING PEASANTS UNDERSTAND THE RISK I'M TAKING???

I COULD END UP LIKE YOU!!!!

[-] brain_in_a_box@hexbear.net 53 points 2 months ago

For the love of God, please learn what equity is. Money paid into a mortgage doesn't just vanish.

[-] Horse@lemmygrad.ml 39 points 2 months ago

i swear too many people think a mortgage is just "rent that ends"

[-] TreadOnMe@hexbear.net 43 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Ah yes, the 'risks' of property ownership, which is why housing is a hoarded asset in capitalist countries. You'd think if it was so 'risky' you wouldn't see capitalists buy up entire swaths of housing stock, but what do I know?

[-] FuckyWucky@hexbear.net 36 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

When landlord pays mortgage from the rent they receive their liability goes down (Mortgage Account), net worth goes up.

When tenant pays rent, it's simply expensed, their net worth goes down from before payment assuming other things are same.

[-] FunkyStuff@hexbear.net 35 points 2 months ago

Okay, so I'm the owner. I buy the house at price X in 2026. My 30 year mortgage payment A = (X + interest - down payment)/n, where n is the number of paying periods in 30 years.

Let's say A is equal to the rent that I set on the tenant(s). Over 30 years, the tenant(s) have paid X + interest, correct? Since they're been paying an amount equal to the mortgage payment. That amount encapsulates the risks because it includes the interest. In total, by 2056, I will have paid off the mortgage

So if in 2056 I sell the house for exactly X (imagine the property hasn't gained value at all) I'll have profited X - down payment dollars. If I was savvier, I would've held on for a bit longer to pay off the down payment, too, or set the rent higher. At no point did I do any work, the tenant(s) paid off my investment and the risk was always on them. This argument holds even if I don't wait until 2056 and sell the house before then with the equity that I have built off of my tenants' payments.

Ergo, landlords are leeches that provide absolutely 0 value and do nothing but hoard and drive up the cost of housing. The only way for this to be fair is if the tenants get equity instead of the landlord while they're renting, but that'd mean landlords wouldn't stand to gain anything (which makes sense because they provide nothing anyway)

[-] oscardejarjayes@hexbear.net 35 points 2 months ago

When you pay rent, your net worth goes down. When you pay mortgage, your net worth goes up.

Those risks are negligible.

The only way for a landlord not to be a leech is for it to be socialized housing owned by the government. With council housing in the UK, the rent was very reasonable, and that money went into building more houses. Or if you're an individual landlord, rent to own, so their net worth goes up with payments as well.

[-] barrbaric@hexbear.net 9 points 2 months ago

It's also presumably possible to set up some sort of profit-sharing scheme whereby the tenant is entitled to some share of the increase in equity, though I've never heard of such a thing being done.